The INCOSE SoS Working Group (SoSWG) identified the need to understand the SoS issues of importance to the systems engineering community as an initial SoSWG activity at their meeting in January 2012 in Jacksonville, Florida. The results of the survey and follow‐up interaction with SoSWG members, identified seven areas of challenge or SoS Pain Points. This paper summarizes the survey and working group feedback and describes the pain points along with the questions they pose for the systems engineering community. The work described in this paper is the product of the INCOSE Systems of Systems Working Group, and acknowledges the contributions of working group members, including Alan Harding, Scott Workinger, Kelly Griendling, Eric Honour, Claire Ingram, Michael Henshaw, Bryan Herdlick, and others who responded to the survey and participated in the formulation and discussions of these SoS pain points.